Luke Smith

Coming from the midlands Luke grew up sailing lakes and reservoirs with his Dad, Bro and mates since the age of 11. These days Luke spends his summers as an advance instructor in Ortakent, Turkey for Neilson Holiday’s.
Here he spends his days passing on his enthusiasm for windsurfing in his lessons and makes the most of the daily winds with every moment spare.
Although Luke is fanatic about freestyle he also loves summer evenings on larger freeride kit or chasing high wind storm sessions.

27 Feb 2015

Birthday Bonus!

This past month has been a bit weird, not so many freestyle sessions but a trip to Daymer Bay for my birthday and some great freeride sails too! One of the reasons has been that I have been unlucky with wind timing and freetime and the other is that I have been saving up for the summer.

This summer me and Becky are saving up for a campervan (instead of flying), for a season-long trip to Italy and surrounding areas. Why Italy? Well there are many cool spots windsurf and non-windsurf to explore. Lake Garda, Sardinia’s Porto Pollo and the south that will offer hours of great windsurfing! The main reason we are heading to Italy though is that the time off the water will be as great as the time on the water. The food, wine and culture will be as fun to explore as the spots.

Hopefully will be able to stay until autumn as Italy has a range of surfing spots too that I am keen to try out!

On paper Itally sounds like the perfect place for a trip for a both windsurfers and non windsurfers and I cant wait to report back about the place.

The video is of me and Ollie at Daymer, it was super super howling and I was sooo stacked on my 4m Bolt, we only filmed 15 mins each as we were both way to cold. Even in the filming gear (my snowboard gear = wind/spray proof jacket and trousers). 2 days of super overpowered jumping and enjoying the local beers, ‘Doom bar’, ‘Tribute’ and my new favourite ‘Proper Job’, made the over 9 hr round trip well worth it! And it was my birthday

Freesailing at Draycote

Here is a short video of me and my mate Ollie filmed one day at Draycote Water. Actually the only reason the vid got made is that my girlfriend Becky came along to shoot and edit it.

The past times that me and Ollie have set out to make a video we would have too much fun on the water to come in and get a camera. Surely thats what windsurfing is about, having too much fun!

Most windsurf media sites around this time of year set their readers new year resolutions or challenges for improvement. I’m just going to share mine with you and maybe you will pick up some bits too…

1. Travel more and actively seek to discover new spots. In the summer we are heading to Italy for (hopefully) some work and a lot of windsurfing. Our plan is to fly to the north and explore our way down to the south; discover some amazing spots, at some point find a job instructing, and document our travels. It wont be as long as previous seasons so this leaves some time either side for other trips, including UK ones.

2. Learn loads. I have a long list of stuff in my head of tricks I want to learn. To do this I know I have to really make the most of the lighter winds as well as focused sessions on particular skills in strong winds.

3. Play around with tuning for different wind strengths. Recently I have been experimenting with loads of outhaul to make the sails feel springy and quicker with their response. I’m really enjoying them feeling like this for when I’m powered up. Changing the rigging really helps with learning different moves as different rigging can change the characteristics of the sail. Having said all that, the Bolt isn’t particularly fussy about how its rigged and actually works really well no matter how it is!

4. Have fun! Really this should be at the top. Normally this is something that I never have an issue with at all! In fact I don’t think I’ve ever had a windsurf that wasn’t fun. Still though I don’t want to get bogged down with goals and lists, fun is to be kept a priority at all times!

Winter Postcard – Autumn

A couple of clips from a recent trip to Poole Harbour for a freestyle session!

Autumns great, to me it means coming home, seeing friends and family, and windsurfing at home. It’s still relatively warm (compared to winter) and the standard autumnal SW winds are all the more frequent. So far where I live it hasnt been super windy yet but the forcast seems to on the up and heres to the wind continuing through winter. I’m not complaining about the cold anyway, I recon the hardcore conditions if anything bond you, things like rigging turn into team building activities…